


Phil Coulson Plus One

by Tawabids



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Action, Domestic, Lovecraftian Villain, M/M, Meet the Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the eve of Phil's Mother's birthday. The house is full of rich, educated Coulsons, Clint is feeling inadequate, Phil is trying to keep his cool and an interdimensional nightmare monster is attacking Long Island.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phil Coulson Plus One

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from the kinkmeme, [here](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/9218.html?thread=19482626#t19482626) and originally posted on the meme at that link.

Clint stares up at the three-story cottage with its windbreak of silver-leaved poplars. He can hear the distant crash of waves on the beach just down the hill. He swallows.

“Are your folks, like, rich?” he says, leaning against the battered Corvette. It is 1989 vintage and sometimes Clint swears the bastard loves it more than he loves Clint.

“By some standards,” Phil says as he goes around to the boot to get their bags. There’s a hint of nerves in his tone, but no more than an unseen bomb threat would generate.

“You said this is just their holiday house. Looks kind of expensive,” Clint looks over the roof of the car to raise an eyebrow at Phil, who is struggling to pop the boot. The driver’s seat lever no longer works and the lock is stiffer than Stark at CES. Shit, that reminds Clint, he’s gotta cut the filthy inneundos. Phil said his parents were traditional. Not foaming-at-the-mouth traditional, but apparently they like their conversation tasteful, whatever the hell that means.

“Well, no, it’s more their summer home, they live it in for most of the year,” a pink blush rises over Phil’s collar, which is open and released from the shackles of his usual work tie. It was two hours drive from Stark Tower and Clint cured the boredom by seeing how close he could get his tongue to Phil’s exposed neck before Phil threatened to pull over.

“Are we going to get a summer home when we retire?” he asks, coming around and thumping the top of the boot with his fist. Phil makes a strangled noise at this blatant Corvette abuse but the lock clicks open.

“If we both make it to retirement, Barton, I will buy you a home for every season and a couple more in case of unseasonal weather,” Phil promises, smiling _that smile_. Clint pecks him on the mouth in full view of the front windows, and Phil doesn’t dodge it, so clearly his parents aren’t _that_ traditional.

Clint grabs both the bags – he’s not big on hugging strangers, so this should give him an excuse if any of Phil’s relatives go in for the kill – heaves them up onto his shoulders and follows Phil towards the summer home.

\---

Phil's mother greets them at the door in an olive-green, Grecian gown. Tomorrow she's seventy-five, and today wears her silver hair and sun-given wrinkles like a chieftess donned in armour. She drags her son in for a hug and a peck on the cheek as if he was still in grade school.

"And this is Clint!" she brays, holding out her arms to him. Oh, God, that's a hug gesture. Phil is watching him with a desperate expression like he genuinely expects Clint to turn and bolt. Clint puts down the bags and accepts the embrace. Mama Coulson smells of salt water and freshly administered perfume.

"Hi, Mrs Coulson."

"Jenny, please Clint, call me Jenny," she squeezes his shoulder with a strong hand as she pulls away. She was a champion rower in her day, Phil says, and she's a couple of inches taller than Clint. "I would say Phil's told us all about you, but you know him, you couldn't drag gossip out with wild horses, _et cetera_ ," she pronounces all four syllables. She probably speaks Latin. Guh.

Most of the family is scattered through the sunny house, or comes up from the beach soon enough. Phil is the baby of his generation, though with barely two years between him and his twin brother and sister he always hated being called ‘youngest’. Clint memorised the family tree in the car; both siblings are married, the sister divorced, they have three kids each and a nephew is wedded with a baby. Four out of the five other kids – mostly adults, really – has a boyfriend or girlfriend in tow for this birthday weekend. Is the married nephew by the sister or brother? Shit. Clint can’t remember.

\---

In the next hour he's greeted by seven people under the age of thirty and a black-haired woman he's eighty percent sure is Phil's sister-in-law. He can't tell the younger bunch apart. "I'm Lily," he's told, "I'm Michael, this is Erika," and "I'm Penelope, Harold's my partner," and "Katrina's outside, but I'm Jason."

Fuck. Clint's totally lost. Phil seems to know every one of them, kissing cheeks and gripping biceps without making a distinction between blood relations and partners. A girl at least ten years younger than Clint, with a crimson-dyed bob, cries as she shakes his hand, "Oh my God, Phil, he's practically a _toddler_ ," and a guy in an expensive suit jacket (Michael?) gives a bark of laughter, "Phil just has better taste than you, Georgie."

Clint is intensely relieved when Phil peels them away from the horde so they can get upstairs and unpack. They climb the stairs to the top of the house, past an open door where a blonde is breastfeeding and reading her kindle at the same time. She cheerfully waves at them, "Hello, Phil! I thought by the raucous welcome it must be you."

“Hi Michelle. Was Trent okay in the car? This is Clint, by the way.”

“Heya, Clint. Trent slept most of the way. We think he liked the movement. He’ll be a sailor like your dad,” Michelle smiles, her silken hair fallen in waves over her dipped shoulder. She looks like a supermodel, with her matching supermodel baby. Clint thinks of Nat’s hair when they’ve been in the field for two weeks with nothing but a cold bucket for washing in. This is like another world.

“Coming?” Phil beckons, breaking him out of his daydream.

Dinner is outside around two huge, round tables clothed in white cotton and laid out with more types of food and wine than Clint consumes in a month. He’s at the big kids table with Mama Coulson and her three children, plus Michelle, her husband Carl and baby Trent. The black-haired woman, Lena, is Phil’s sister after all. His brother Ned’s wife is round-faced and speaks with the tiniest hint of an accent, but she’s too far away for Clint to ask her where it’s from. 

Finally, when the chef and her two assistants are bringing the last of the dishes out with the younger kids, Poppa Coulson emerges from his study. He’s shorter than his wife, but just as athletic and amicable. He clenches Phil in a bone-breaking hug and declares it Too Long Since We Saw You. He talks like every word cost a hundred bucks, and he’s got millions in spare change to spend on them. He made his fortune in the mining business, Phil said, but these days he writes textbooks on geology.

Before today, Clint didn’t even know the difference between geology and geography.

During dinner – this is ordinary, every-night dinner, too, the party isn’t until tomorrow – Clint listens to Lena talk about her job as director of surgery in a top Baltimore hospital. Ned is apparently a very successful lawyer of some kind and breaks in occasionally to argue about healthcare policies. He and Lena disagree a lot, but without it ever coming to blows the way Clint is used to disagreements. They keep turning to Clint and asking him, what does _he_ think, and when he side-steps a proper answer, Lena makes comments about how people need to _learn_ about these things, it’s _important_. When the topic turns to reusable energy, an argument starts up between Poppa Coulson and Lena about market-driven technology, and Lena tries to get Clint on her side.

“There’s no need to stay so quiet, Clint,” Poppa Coulson barks, when Clint just stares. “State your mind, man. We don’t bite.”

“I don’t really have an opinion,” Clint mumbles.

“Why isn’t there more in the media about this?” Lena demands. "Then people could make up their minds."

Clint tries to keep them both talking to each other, but eventually the argument dies down and the worst possible question arises.

“So anyway, Clint,” Lena turns to him, resting her long, silver fork on the edge of her plate as if lining it up for a photo shoot. “Phil didn’t say. What do you do?”

Clint overchews his bread to give himself time to think. He and Phil talked about it, because the agreement at Stark Tower is that everybody’s identities (sans Mr Iron Attention Whore himself) stay under the radar. Steve is a public favourite and his cover is pretty well blown, but the rest of them are still blurry press shots and action figures with recycled GI Joe faces under next year’s Christmas trees. Except Natasha, who’s a Barbie mould. Phil said his family couldn’t be the exception, because three of the youngest are already cultivating a following on their blogs or YouTube channels and the rest have very large Facebook networks.

Phil had nodded sagely, “Just say you work as an analyst in my department. They know I can’t talk about work. They’ll back off.”

But now the moment has come, Clint thinks this will be such an obvious lie. He knows analysts at SHIELD. They all aced some exam, somewhere, and he literally can’t remember the last time he didn’t fuck, threaten or cheat his way into a passing grade. Fury exempted him and Nat from last year’s audit because they kept making the accountants cry. He’s not an analyst. It’ll be _obvious_. Should he tell them he’s unemployed? That Phil’s just his sugar-daddy? No, tasteful, he has to stay tasteful.

“Um,” Clint realises the conversation around the big kid’s table has dropped while Lena waits for his answer. He has to think of something. His gaze falls on the steaming ham sliced up in the centre of the table. “I’m a butcher.”

Phil closes his eyes. Everybody else nods as they process this. Lena says, “Ah,” like she had her next question prepared and Clint managed to find the one profession that didn’t fit it. “That’s really… handy.”

“Yes, we’ve got a lot of livestock around here that need slaughtering,” Ned guffaws. The corner of Phil’s mouth twitches. Clint realises he is humiliating him.

Yeah, but he’s committed now. “It’s actually a very skilled craft,” he says, reaching across the table to grab a segment of persimmon and pop it into his mouth. “Taking apart the body of a creature that used to be alive, something muscled and majestic like cattle. And then you can pass its components onto another creature that will absorb its most basic molecular pieces. It’s quite spiritual.”

Ha. How’s that for tasteful?

It’s supermodel Michelle who laughs first, a bright and genuine chuckle. Lena and Ned join in nervously, and Mama and Poppa Coulson snigger to each other. Carl smiles at Phil like his uncle has brought home a prizewinning novel rather than a boyfriend. “That’s so poetic.”

“You’re a real philosopher, Clint.”

“Phil always liked the arty types,” Mama Coulson says. “Even when he was young.”

Phil is the only one who’s forcing a smile. Clint leans back in his chair and grins with the rest of the family. Whatever. He’ll win them over his own way.

\---

The dinner goes late into the summer dusk, until the mosquitoes begin to descend and everyone pours inside, leaving the dishes for the chef’s assistants and the housekeeper. Phil is swept into the main lounge with the older generation while the younger lot haul Clint away into the games room. He wants to tell them he’s older than they think he is, but he can’t figure out why they’ve mistaken him for one of them anyway. Was Georgie right? Is he a toddler, does he really come off like a dumb kid among these people?

Once the wall-to-wall television is on and the pool table occupied, he sneaks away on the pretence of having a piss and goes outside into the cooling night. The stars are just starting to come out. He can smell someone smoking, and follows the trail around the corner of the kitchen until he finds Georgie of the fake red hair, sitting on a patio chair and facing the poplars. He’s pretty sure from the evening’s conversation that she’s a blood relation, and the only one who didn’t bring a plus one. She looks at him from under lowered lids.

“Can I join you?”

“Be my guest,” she replies, tapping up a cigarette from the packet in her hand. 

He leans against the weatherboards and bends down to light it from the tip of hers, sucking in her breath with the smoke. He and Bobbi used to light their cigarettes like that when they were in bed together, before she left for bigger and better things. He hasn’t thought about Bobbi in ages. He hasn’t thought about a lot of people since he started seducing Phil.

They stay in silence for a while. The poplars whisper almost out of hearing. After a few minutes, there’s the scrape of wood and metal and they look up to see someone opening the kitchen window above their heads. Mama Coulson’s voice calls for someone to help her find the brandy glasses. Georgie mouths a curse and drops her cigarette, grinding it into the grass with the heel of her sandal. She hisses, “If Gran smells it, it’s yours, okay?”

“Gotcha,” he winks.

Through the open window, Mama Coulson’s educated lilt floats clearly. “Have you talked to Graham recently?”

“Mom,” Phil’s drone replies. “Seriously?”

“I’m just asking. He’s my friend too.”

“No, I haven’t talked to Graham. I probably won’t _ever_ talk to him again, if that’s what you're asking.”

There’s a brief pause and the clink of glasses being laid out on a tray. Then Mama Coulson presses further. “Was Clint the one that he, you know, caught you with? Was he why Graham left?”

Clint freezes with the cigarette held a few inches from his lips. He suddenly realises who the subject of their conversation is. He barely knew the guy – only met him that once, and that was kind of a confusing introduction for everybody. Graham the musician. Phil used to have a picture of him in an expensive black frame that sat on his desk in the helicarrier. Clint would sit on that desk looking at the picture and make jibes about how Coulson liked them well-groomed. And worse jokes, terrible and bitter jokes. Yeah. He’d been the jealous type. 

“He left because we were miserable together, Mom,” there’s a too-heavy slam of a cupboard. Clint flinches and feels his gut contract. “He loved the mere idea of Portland more than he loved me,” his voice drops. “Clint was just the trigger he needed.”

“I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life,” Mama Coulson soothes. “It just seems like – he’s not really your type, is he, Phil? You’ve always run with such a smart crowd-“

“Okay, you need to stop,” Phil says. Clint’s cigarette is between his fingers, but he realises he hasn’t pulled on it since the conversation began. He notices that Phil doesn’t try to deny the implication. He feels sick. His hand shudders and ash drops to the ground.

“That’s not what I meant. But all those poets and musicians, they seemed so good for you. Someone to button you down. I just want to know you’re not settling.”

“I’m not settling,” Phil says quietly. There’s the rattle of a tray of glasses being picked up. “Are you done?”

Footsteps leave the kitchen and fade into the hush of the poplars. Clint looks over at Georgie, whose expression he can’t quite read in the shadows.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, and adds. “It’s none of Gran’s business.”

“No,” he agrees.

“Mom and Michelle like you,” she adds. “Mom comes off bitchy, but that's her way of trying to impress you.”

“Lena’s your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit,” Clint drags on the cigarette. “I can’t keep anyone straight in this house.”

“’Specially not Uncle Phil.”

She laughs at her own joke, covering her mouth when she can’t suppress the giggle. Clint feels like the grown up and smiles around the cigarette. In the distance, something catches his eyes and he raises his head. Something inside him says, _get ready to run_ , and it isn’t until the lights emerges through the trees that line the driveway that he realises they’re blue and red. A police car. It crunches to a stop on the gravel beside Poppa Coulson’s long, two-storey garage

Georgie has seen it too, and starts to get up. Clint drops his cigarette on the grass and waves his hand towards the patio door. “Go on in, I’ll see what they want.”

“Should I get Mom?“

“Get inside for now,” he orders, and jogs towards the patrol.

\---

One brief conversation later, Clint is on the phone to Stark tower as the cops pull away into the night. He turns to see the colonnaded front door standing open. Phil is there in a pool of warm light, with Mama Coulson and Georgie behind him. In his ear, Steve answers, “Clint – hey, where are you? We got a situation out on Long Island-“

“I’m there. Cops are evacuating the area. They said there’s been at least three deaths in the wake of – do you know what this is?” Clint strides towards the house and clicks his fingers at Phil. “Keys.”

Phil throws him the car keys from his pocket, calling after Clint, “Any time you wanna fill me in.”

Clint doesn’t answer. He turns and heads for the Corvette.

“Tony’s working on it,” Steve replies. Clint can hear activity in the background: Tony’s cursing and Thor’s rumbling disagreement. “What the hell are you doing in the Hamptons?”

“Quick B&E,” Clint slams his fist down on the Corvette’s rear and the trunk pops open. “How far out are you guys?”

“Yeah, I was kind of getting to that,” Steve sounds like he’s wincing. “This thing is killing electrical devices of all kinds. Bruce doesn’t want to fly a jet over the area in case we drop out of the sky. He’s trying to bully Tony into keeping the suit out of it, too.”

“What, so you’re not coming?” Clint squawks.

“We’re on our way, Clint, but we’re going to loop around, approach from the North East and drive down to meet it.”

“There’s gonna be hundreds of people fleeing the scene, Cap, those roads will be hell.”

“You know how Tony drives,” Steve replies. “Bruce’s got your phone’s location, follow the evacuation until you hear from us again.”

“Got it, Cap. See you at the party.”

He turns to find Phil standing behind him. His eyes are hard, like they haven’t been since the last time some dumb intern disobeyed one of his orders. “Hawkeye, I need a report.”

“Something’s blocked the roads into Southampton and it’s coming this way, and everything electrical from phones to car batteries is dying as it approaches,” Clint pushes the spare tarp and bungee cords aside and lifts up the panel below that in most cars would have held a spare tyre. Nestled beneath, strapped down with buckles designed to hold sports gear to roof racks, are two solid black cases. “The coast guard is watching it from a distance, but there’s no details except that it’s leaving hell in its path.”

As he speaks, Clint loosens the straps and opens the larger case. He can barely see the shape of his bow in the darkness, but he knows it’s there. Reliable. Unconditional.

“You have to get your family into the car,” he glances over Phil’s shoulder. Ned, Lena and Michelle have joined them, and some of the younger generation are peering through the curtains of the nearest window. Clint amends, “Several cars. Keep driving until you run out of road.”

Phil reaches past him and unclips the second case to reveal a SHIELD-modified assault rifle and ammo for every human, alien or supernatural threat. “Not likely, soldier,” he grins at Clint and leans in press a brief kiss to his brow. “I didn’t drag you this far to leave you out in the cold.”

For a moment Clint can’t bring himself to acknowledge the affection, and then he smiles back at Phil and unfolds his bow. He engages his arrows into standard steel tips as soon as the quiver is on his back – he doesn’t need the quiver’s computer dropping dead and leaving him with a bunch of useless shafts as soon as the battle starts.

Clint frowns. “Michelle said your dad was a sailor. I don’t suppose…?”

Phil’s brows rise. “You think escaping by water will be safer?”

“If this thing is sticking to land, it’s gotta be better than driving into a dead-end peninsula.”

Phil lifts up the rifle, checks it and slings the strap over his shoulder. He sweeps the magazines into a bag and together they march back to the house.

“Mom,” Phil yells ahead. “We need to get everyone onto the yacht.”

\---

Mama Coulson and Georgie are the ones to step forward and meet them, like a couple of growling German shepherds sniffing strangers. The elder woman has swept a dark blue shawl around her shoulders and her arms are crossed over her chest. She gives Clint a long, sharp look, her brow furrowing, and then turns to her son.

“Phil, what is this? Were those policemen looking for someone?” she makes no mention of the fierce rifle he’s got under his arm. Maybe she knows more about his work that Phil thinks.

“They’re evacuating the area, Mom,” Phil says pleasantly.

“Why?” her neck turns quickly to glare at Clint, gaze flicking over the length of his arm and the sweep of the bow. “Is that weapon some kind of a joke, young man?”

“We have talk about this later,” Phil puts his hand on her arm. “I need you to rally the masses and get everyone out of here.”

She doesn’t move from the threshold. It’s two of the younger folks that break the tension. Michael and Erika come into the hall staring at Clint’s bow, tossing whispers between each other without taking their eyes off it. Georgie notices them and snaps, “Do you two have something to say?”

Michael flushes. “We saw the bow and Penelope got all excited and started googling the Avengers.”

“You know, Gran,” Erika says. “Those badass vigilantes who were first on the scene in last year’s invasion.”

Mama Coulson’s eyes go wide and she glances from Clint to Michael. The younger man mumbles, “Maybe that’s crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Clint says, because this conversation is taking way too long and there is a Big Bad Something approaching rapidly from the horizon.

Erika gives an elated squeak and clutches her hand to her mouth. “I knew it! He’s Hawkeye! He’s one of Captain America’s buddies, oh my God!”

It’s kind of gratifying. Clint shoots her his wickedest grin, and then tries to look sensible as he turns to Mama Coulson. “It’s true, ma’am, but now really isn’t the time to discuss it. You mind if we shuffle the lot of you out of the firing line? Because we think it’s going to be quite a long line.”

Most of the younger generation do as they’re told, passing the news between each other almost at the speed of gossip. They gape at Clint as they grab jackets and shoes and stream outside. Ned, Michelle, and Carl with baby Trent allow themselves to be herded after Poppa Coulson, who has taken charge quickly in a booming voice. Clint can suddenly see that this is indeed the man who produced the sperm that became Phil Coulson. Mama Coulson forms a tag team with her husband, turning the kids back when they try to go upstairs to get bags and favourite electronics, sending them off to their grandfather for instructions on launching the dinghy and collecting extra lifejackets. The yacht itself is moored just offshore, visible only as a pair of white triangles through the olive trees that tumble over the bank down to the beach.

Georgie and Mama Coulson are the last two to head down to the yacht. The matriarch tightens her shawl and wraps one wiry hand around the back of Clint’s neck, pulling him in close. “You protect my son.”

“I’d die before I let him come to harm, Mrs Coulson.”

“Jenny, Clint. It’s Jenny,” she shakes her head and looks back at Phil without a goodbye as she takes Georgie’s hand and hurries down the steps towards the jetty.

\---

Clint and Phil take the Corvette to the main road and park it on the curb, perpendicular to the lanes. For a few minutes there’s a stream of cars, but the rush soon dies away. A minivan and a couple of sports cars tail the evacuation, and then two cop cars. The second one stops to tell them get moving, but Phil flashes his ID and dismisses the guy with a few words. It’s kind of magic. The overheard conversation starts to fade from Clint’s mind.

They hear the click of claws and Clint draws an arrow, but out of the shadows of the hedges comes a panicked dog trailing a broken chain. It flees past without taking heed of them. A few minutes later there’s a cluster of wild rats. Clint starts scanning the rooftops for a good nest.

“Did Steve really tell you to hold your ground?” Phil asks.

“No, but if we’re running we’ve got our backs turned,” he replies. “Not easy to shoot from that angle.”

The houses here are set far back from the road and most of them have a lot of foliage that’ll block his view, but he can see a nice, fat pilaster at the entrance to the nearest mansion’s driveway. Balanced on the brick fence the pilaster sprouts from, he should be able to fire around the curved column without leaving himself exposed.

“I’m going to have to report this disobedience,” Phil raises an eyebrow and Clint replies with an exaggerated wince.

The night is totally silent. This neighbourhood should be thick with dinner parties and spoilt teenagers gathering in revelry. But there isn’t even the hoot of night birds. The mansion’s iron gate sits open and the burglar alarm at the entrance is winking a green ‘not active’ light in the gloom.

Clint checks his phone and sees a strange yellow distortion rippling across the screen. He tries Tony’s number to see if the others are on their way, but the ringing of the connection cuts out to a hiss and when he says, “Hello?” he thinks he can hear a low voice – a multitude of voices – chanting in a language that doesn’t sound like any he knows. Doesn’t really sound like the words could even be formed by human vocal cords.

He pulls the phone away from his ear with a jerk and meets Phil’s eyes.

“I think it’s close.”

Phil nods. “I can feel it.”

Clint pauses, tries to open up to the sensation Phil’s talking. There’s something there, but he can’t find the words. It’s like nausea, but it doesn’t make him want to throw up, it’s more like his arteries are leaking sadness. His head hurts just thinking about it.

“Makes me feel old,” Phil offers.

“Yeah, kinda,” Clint looks him in the eye. “Maybe makes you feel like you’re settling.”

Phil starts like someone stuck a needle in his buttcheek.

Clint waves his hand in a flourishing indication of his whole self. “I can tell you, sir, you can’t actually find better than what you’ve got.”

Phil’s jaw hangs open a little and he narrows his eyes. A smile pulls at his mouth. “You cheeky little fuck.”

“I didn’t listen in on purpose. I pinky promise,” Clint winks.

The streetlights above them flicker, fade to fragile yellow and then brighten until one bulb bursts. Phil points up to Clint’s chosen hiding place.

“I’ll stay behind the car. You get up that fence – I saw you eyeing it up.”

“You’re picking the Corvette?” Clint frowns. “You think the paintwork will survive?”

Phil clicks the corner of her mouth. “I love this car, Hawkeye. But more than that I love the way they made it. These old beasts. Much thicker panelling.”

“You think of everything, sir,” Clint beams. He checks the straps of his quiver. “Kiss for good luck?”

“Not on the job, soldier,” Phil kneels with the rifle resting on the trunk of the Corvette. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

\---

When it arrives, it looks like black smoke, and crawls towards them like ants marching in a towering wave. Two housecats break for cover ahead of it and sprint past Phil’s kneeling form. The streetlamps have been flickering for a while, but they finally die. It’s a starry night and Clint’s eyes adjust fast, but he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to aim for. No – there – there’s thick places in the smoke, in the heart of it where it draws ahead along the broken white line in the centre of the road. And it’s definitely sticking to the streets, which means it’s got something physical that he can bury an arrow in.

Phil’s voice breaks across the quiet distance. “Please stop your approach. I am an agent of SHIELD, and I have the authority to negotiate ceasefire on behalf of this country. I’d like to open communications.”

Clint thinks that the smoke falters for just a moment, and then it surges forward.

“This is your last chance,” Phil calls, still as cool as a fresh-poured lager. “Stop where you are or I will consider your advance a threat.”

The smoke threatens. Clint draws back and puts a shaft through the most solid part he can see and the thing _screams_ , like a bandsaw through bone, and that artery-clogging nausea streams through Clint. He gasps aloud, but it’s no worse than battling through pain. Or a hangover. Or the misery of Bobbi breaking up with him. He fires a second arrow a little lower than the first, just in case this thing keeps its brain at crotch-height (or its crotch at crotch-height, either will do) and the smoke pauses at last, still screeching. The darkness pours off the solidness to reveal something crouched and tearing at two arrows in its flank, and there’s grey tentacles as thick as fur and a multitude of black tubes instead of eyes. The smoke is streaming and whirling as if in a high wind now, and curls upwards in ribbons that reform into what look very much like they might be missiles –

To Clint’s great relief, that’s when the thunder starts.

\---

The Hulk, with Steve and Natasha clinging to his shoulders, is close behind Thor. Tony’s suit shorts out a quarter-mile from the monster, so he’s down for the whole battle, left to ad lib for a swarm of news cameras that have stopped on the edge of the electrical barrier. The rest of the team make short work of the monster. Thor does most of the heavy lifting: the thing must share a wavelength with Asgardian magic because it really, really doesn’t like his hammer.

Things are pretty much done and dusted by midnight. After it finally stops moving the creature disintegrates rapidly, like a fast-forwarded film of fruit decomposing, with the stench of sour milk and something metallic. The streetlights come back on and soon enough Tony turns up with the Quinjet, bitching about how long it took them and how much he hates Mic Balter from Channel 9. Steve’s doing a tough-guy wobble towards the jet, pretending he hasn’t pulled an abdominal muscle, and the Corvette’s got a wicked dent and a shattered window on her driver’s side door, but she starts smoothly enough.

“Sweet ride, Coulson!” Bruce, butt-naked but no longer bashful in front of the team, sticks his head in the smashed window. He spots Clint reaching for the passenger handle. “Oh, er, did we crash your romantic weekend?”

“No way, we were just checking out open homes for our summer retreat,” Clint opens the door and leans down to speak to Phil. “Aren’t you coming back to the tower?”

“Are you kidding?” Phil gapes. “You think this little commotion is going to throw a wrench in my Mom’s plans? I still need to make an appearance tomorrow. And so do you,” he adds. Clint can tell from his tone that this is not up for discussion. He straightens up and shrugs at Bruce.

“Sorry, guys, looks like I’m on Coulson’s elbow for the weekend. See you in a couple of days.”

Natasha touches his shoulder as she passes. “I know you didn’t run for it like Cap told you, Barton. We’re going to have words later.”

He laughs and gets into the car beside Phil. They sit with the engine running as the Quinjet’s door closes and it lifts up into the starry night. America is safe once more, Clint thinks. Glory be.

Instead of pushing the car into gear, Phil folds his arms on the top of the steering wheel and slumps to rest his forehead against them.

\---

“Sir?” Clint asks. His hand hovers just over Phil’s shoulder blade. “You alright?” and when there was still no answer, he finally puts the hand down and feels the exertion-heated body beneath, the shuddering of muscles and Phil’s laboured breathing.

“Phil?”

“Gimme a second,” Phil says.

Clint doesn’t reply. Phil has never broken down. Phil has never raged or bawled or become catatonic with grief at losing an agent under his command. Even during the long months in the hospital last year, he was pretty much zen. This isn’t even the first time Phil had to serve beside the team. Clint has no idea what could be different now.

“You didn’t see them, did you?” Phil asks.

“See who?”

When Phil replies, it doesn’t seem like an answer. “I was really mad at them at dinner tonight. The way they kept picking on you. It’s their way of getting people involved, but they all stay in their priggish little circles. They don’t know how to talk to real people. I was so mad, I thought, I don’t care if a supervillain with a robot army blasts the whole Hamptons into the ocean. And then… and then…”

Clint rubs a rut into the wrinkles of the ironed suit jacket. After a few seconds, his head still bent and eyes hidden, Phil speaks again. “In the smoke. There were things in the smoke. Some of them were – hybrids of my thoughts. Nightmare flashes. Blue lights the colour of the tesseract. I saw you with blue eyes coming to shoot me. At one point I saw Mom and Ned and Lena. They were screaming. I didn’t even hesitate. I kept firing.”

“Yeah, but... not real, right?” Clint frowns. “That thing, it got in your head worse than the rest of us. Bruce thinks it was using electrical fields to, I don’t know, do brain stuff. You were just more sensitive.”

“They looked real.”

“What about me?” Clint asks. “Did you shoot me?”

Phil turns his head, his eyelids half-lowered. He mumbles into his arms. “Yeah. I did.”

“Good,” Clint barks. “See? You always make the right call.”

Phil rubs one of his eyes and huffs a laugh. “Shooting you was the right call?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, impatiently because Phil’s just being stupid now. He doesn’t doubt his ‘yeah’, not a bit, not even an itty-bitty bit deep anywhere in the bottom of his gut. He figures maybe Phil can hear that in his voice, because at last he straightens up, puts the Corvette into gear and drives them through the still-flickering streetlamps to the family home.

Halfway there he calls Lena and tells her they can bring everyone in off the yacht. Clint can hear yells and uproar coming through the phone even from the other side of the car. He tenses, ready for another fight, but it turns out that the news have just reported the successful defeat of the inter-dimensional threat and everyone on the yacht has been following twitter closely on their phones. The Coulson clan are hollering their pride to the high heavens and opening every bottle of wine in the yacht’s not insubstantial fridge. Clint wonders how many of them have already tweeted "OMG MY UNCLE'S DATING HAWKEYE #avengers#fuckyeah". 

“And here I was hoping it would be an early night,” Phil grouches.

\---

 

They sleep in until ten, and Phil takes a forty-minute shower. Clint wonders what he’s trying to wash off, but whatever it is, it’s not showing on his face when he finally comes back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist.

“How are you not dressed yet?” Phil demands.

“I don’t want to go down,” Clint rolls onto his stomach and props himself up onto his elbow. “I want to stay in bed until I don’t have to shmooze with your relatives any more.”

A few aches have made themselves known, and he can see a bruise blossoming on Phil’s shoulder where the rifle butt rested. He’s longing to press his lips to the heat of the inflamed muscle. He wants to smell hot water on Phil’s skin and trail his way down past the scar on Phil’s chest. It sits over ribs shattered like a jigsaw by a thick blade and broken a dozen times more during the surgeries that followed. Phil is like a history museum Clint could spend all day exploring. 

“I'll do my best to shield you from the barrage,” Phil collects his watch from the bedside table. He’s strapping it on when Clint leans across the bed, and he doesn’t manage to duck away before Clint grabs the corner of the towel and tugs it right off. “Hey!”

“Come over here and get it,” Clint grins, wriggling back to his side of the bed. He bites down on the wet flannel and raises his eyebrows.

“That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting. I dried my balls with that,” Phil grabs his clothes off the chair, bending over just a bit. Show-off. “And no, I don’t want it back.”

Clint sucks on the towel noisily. “Mmm. Tastes like you.”

“Oh, God, I’m not kissing you now. Your seduction tactics are unbelievable.”

He’s putting his shirt on, which is a bit of a disappointment, but he’s smiling, and that’s enough for Clint.

\---

The sun is blistering, though there's three silken tents set up to take shelter under, each laid with enough to feed the hordes of Ghengis Khan, or at least a dozen Asgardians. There's two hundred people spread across the estate, right down to the beach. Even the children chasing each other around their parents’ legs are dressed up impeccably, and Clint feels pretty damn dishevelled in his T-shirt and jeans. At first they just wander through the crowd, Phil greeting family friends and introducing Clint as they go. But it’s Mama Coulson’s birthday, and all roads lead to her. 

She's in a grey summer dress today, every inch of her crafted with subtle makeup and tailored stitches. No one at the party could know she spent the evening on an overcrowded boat rallying her family to flee a monster from another universe. She abandons the conversation with what looks like a goblin in a toupee and turns, her skirt sweeping around her, and holds out her arms. She waits for them to come to her.

“My darling,” she cries as she wraps Phil up. “I’m so proud of you. And terrified, truly, I’m terrified. Please don’t ever tell me anything about your job.”

“I won’t, Mom. I’m not allowed to. I don’t suppose you could have a word with the kids as well-?”

“Of course. Classified and all that. I’d hate to have your bosses subpoena your own nieces and nephews.”

And then she turns sharp eyes on Clint, and detaches herself from Phil, reaching with her thin, dry hands to grab his face like he was just another great-grandson. He resists the urge to reach for a bow that isn’t there anyway. He hates strangers touching his face. It’s just freakin’ weird, man. 

Mama Coulson shakes her head. “You, my boy, are the most interesting addition to the family in my memory.” 

“That’s a compliment,” Phil supplies from the sidelines. 

“Thanks, Mrs C,” Clint says, and she finally lets him go, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Well,” she sighs. “Tell me something ordinary, something about your lives that won’t give me a heart attack.”

“Um,” Clint racks his brain. He can’t think of anything. He and Nat are totally addicted to X-Box right now, but he doesn’t think that’s tasteful.

“Clint was raised in a circus,” Phil offers serenely.

“Oh, thank you, yes, that’s a really good impression. How about I tell her how much you fart in bed, huh?”

Mama Coulson waves her hand. “I raised him, that’s old news. Tell me about this circus,” she sips her champagne, and pats Clint’s arm. “No, really! Tell me about yourself, Clint. I don’t think I’ve given you a fair chance yet.”

Maybe that’s an understatement. But maybe it’s a welcome. Clint tries to tell her the least distressing parts of his childhood while Phil just watches him with an unfaltering smile.

Sometime later, after Mama Coulson’s been drawn away by other guests and Clint’s gorged himself at the hors d'oeuvres table, they’re mobbed by their new fans. Michael, Erika and Georgie sprint over to corral them against the drinks table. It turns out they're not interested in Uncle Phil at all, only in Clint. Phil laughs and sneaks away, leaving him to be bombarded with questions from three twenty-something young professionals with much better vocabulary than him. Georgie wants pictures, insisting that Michael take four before she’s satisfied by her own face. Clint makes her promise not to put it online. He cannot handle getting this kind of attention on the street, not from strangers. And Captain America’s fame is one thing; if a SHIELD agent ends up going viral, Fury will probably shit a one-eyed brick. 

They're eventually distracted by the arrival of some young heiress and Clint escapes. He spots Phil standing at the edge of the bank, looking out over the Atlantic. Clint has to weave his way through the crowd to reach him. God, he wishes he had a handy air duct to crawl through instead of this claustrophobic mess of people in fancy shirts with fancy hair product and fancy laughs. 

“Hey,” Phil says as Clint sidles up beside him. He downs the last of his champagne and licks his lips. “So what do you think of them?” 

The sea sparkles endlessly into the horizon and Clint can smell the olive trees above them ripening in the sun. “They’re okay.” He shrugs and elbows Phil in the ribs. “I can choose a lot of things, sir, but not your family.”


End file.
